This is a Chinese
Calculator. It's called and abacus. It is made of beads which are stored
on place value bars. The two bars on the far right store the tenths
and hundredths information for doing decimal calculation. Notice the
decimal point and the commas have been drawn on the separator bar.
Each of the two beads on the
upper part of the bars represents five units, and each of the five beads
on the lower part of the bars is one unit.
Okay, let's add 8 + 4 on our Chinese calculator.
8 + 4 =
step 1
Move the beads on the one's
place value bar (directly to the left of the decimal
point) to represent the number 8. We use a 5 point bead and three
1 point beads.
Now we need to add four more.
But notice, there aren't four more single beads that can be moved,
only a 5 point and two 1 point beads.
So, we will make four by moving the one 5 point bead down
and then removing one of the 1 point beads, (because
5-1=4).
This is what it looks like. However, it is not in proper form, because the two 5 point beads really make ten. So we have ten plus two more which is 12. This is properly represented by moving one 1 point bead up on the tens place value bar and pushing the two 5 point beads back up on the ones place value bar.
step3
So here you see the final
answer.
